PESHAWAR, July 18: People suffering with HIV/Aids, who are trying to raise awareness of the disease and to push for more treatment, have urged the government to provide pre-treatment tests to the patients free of cost.

“There are nine anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy centres, but only the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Memorial Trust and Research Centre, Lahore, is providing pre-testing facility to the patients free of cost. The patients are made to pay for the expensive tests,” said Nazir Maseeh, an HIV patient.

Fifty-year-old Nazir Maseeh, who is living with Aids from the last 17 years, is campaigning along with others HIV positive people, to provide treatment to the people living with HIV/Aids (PLWHA). Under the banner of a Lahore-based NGO, New Light Aids Control Society (NLAS), he formed in 1999 with registered 145 patients, Maseeh’s role has been instrumental in starting ARV therapy centres in Pakistan.

“We first imported ARV-three regime drug-from India in 2003 initially for five patients. Now, we have 36 persons on ARV,” he said.

Of the total registered patients currently being treated under the programme 93 are males, 41 females, and 11 children.

Children were infected by 14 couples who are undergoing treatment. Nazir, who contracted the ailment abroad in 1990, says his wife and five children have remained uninfected.

There are about 800 patients currently being treated at the ARV centres across the country. Nazir says that there was a need to register about 3900 HIV/Aids patients in the country for treatment.

“The real number of patients might increase terribly, if all people were tested for HIV, but the problem is that the people feared to be tested for HIV, because of the public outcry,” said he.

Nazir Maseeh said that he had taken it as a personal challenge to raise awareness about the disease and remove the stigma associated with it in the society.

As a result patients with Aids cannot get the antiretroviral drugs they need. General hospitals are ill-prepared to admit the patients, saying that they do not have facilities to treat them, he said. He said his organisation was also involved in awareness campaign to change the attitude of our people towards patients with HIV.

“The situation is alarming. Gone are the days when we used to bracket drivers, sex workers, homosexuals, and so on as a vulnerable group. We have patients who never went out of their areas but were diagnosed as HIV positive while seeking treatment for some other disease,” he said.